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LibrePCB: First stable release published
- Faaak 8y agoA thing that I really miss in Kicad is the ability to quickly add zero-ohm resistors when editing the PCB layout while not modifying the schematic. Indeed, when you do your own boards in house, it's really convenient to add a zero-ohm smd resistor for jumping over a trace, without having the need to go and edit the schematic..
- bronson 8y agoBut then your BOM, PCB, and schematic wouldn't match. Somewhat like automatic code formatting, disallowing this sort of divergence seems more a feature than a misfeature to me. Even for in-house use.
- starbeast 8y agoSome bit of my head is a zero ohm resistor resistor. Every time I read 'zero ohm resistor', it goes 'nope nope nope' at me.
- analognoise 8y agoWhy not? They're great as test points and you can pull them off and place a resistor or capacitor in their place.
- Mindless2112 8y agoProbably because the operating temperature is about 0 Kelvin.
- starbeast 8y agoI guess it doesn't have to go quite that low, depending on what you make it out of. Though you have got me wondering whether anyone has put a crumb of high temp superconductor in a smd resistor package yet and if so, for what purpose.
- gh02t 8y ago"High temperature" is relative, they still have to be cryogenically cooled to temperatures around -100C. So no SMD superconductors yet.
- starbeast 8y agoThat is still a relatively accessible temperature, given that liquid nitrogen is about the same price as clean water. Off the top of my head, I could think of one use, which would be to trigger a transistor to switch on and off some high power superconducting circuit when the small bit of superconductor gets cold enough to start superconducting.
- wolfgang42 8y agoI assume it's the paradox of a resistor that doesn't resist.
- blt 8y agoThink of it as an "epsilon ohm resistor".
- starbeast 8y agoHeh, I like that. I tend to think of them as a surface mount jumper.
- cellularmitosis 8y agoMy 1/4W THT zero ohm resistors are about 0.025 ohms according to my bench meter. In theory, that implies a 400 amp rating... not going to try that anytime soon :)
- amyjess 8y agoIt's zero in the number of significant figures used by the test equipment.
- amelius 8y agoThat's a pity because then you can't use that resistor to measure current by a measurement of a voltage difference.
- ssfrr 8y agoThey make high-precision low-resistance resistors specifically for current measurement. Your standard cheapo zero-ohm resistor though is more for creating optional connections that you can configure at assembly time.
- ajnin 8y agoYou can just create a PCB with one additional layer and use that layer (top one for example if you make single-sided pcbs at home) for jumpers, then to add a jumper while routing a trace, switch layers, which will add a through-hole via, trace your jumper, then jump back to the initial layer through another via. When etching the board you omit that layer and later solder wires where the traces were. It's quite flexible as you can add jumpers of any length and orientation that way, the only inconvenient is that jumpers aren't marked on the silkscreen but it's fine for home-made projects.
- blattimwind 8y agoThis is the correct-ish way if you don't plan to actually populate zero-ohm resistors from a BOM.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoThis looks great! However I had to click on "Docs" to actually find out what it is. If you're going to be linking to the homepage perhaps including the information from the "About" section there would help your cause. Just a friendly suggestion. Keep up the good work! :)
- extra__tofu 8y agoMaybe I missed it but why would anyone use this over KiCad?
- craftyguy 8y agoThe author of librepcb answered this on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrintedCircuitBoard/comments/9q4j1n/librepcb_first_release_candidate_is_out_ama/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PrintedCircuitBoard/comments/9q4j1n...
- crispyambulance 8y ago> would anyone use this over KiCad? It appears the key reason is how parts are managed (the part libraries). I use KiCad and mostly like it-- it can do everything. But the biggest problem [with KiCad] is there doesn't seem to be a coherent/opinionated workflow about how you manage parts (part libraries). By "managing parts" I mean the associations in your "project" between the schematic symbol, its footprint, its 3D model, and perhaps even datasheet, spice and vendor info. Keeping this stuff straight is a major pain in the ass and it's stressful to add new parts. These are hard problems and people have wildly different ideas about what's correct. The fact that LibrePCB is signalling improvements in these areas makes me want to give it a spin. There does seem to be some initiatives lately to make this stuff easier (eg SnapEDA, UltraLibrarian, EE Concierge, and others). But to really make it work, EDA vendors need to standardize together or find a way to work with "everything".
- Negative1 8y agoI didn't see anything with a cursory glance but are they considering allowing Eagle libraries to be used? This would be great but something I would assume that Autodesk would hate.
- dbrgn 8y agoThe library format concepts are quite different, so using them directly probably won't be possible. But there is a Eagle converter somewhere in the sourcecode (although it's not exactly userfriendly) :) But creating or generating own high-quality libraries is surely the better way forward. See https://github.com/LibrePCB/librepcb-parts-generator https://github.com/LibrePCB/librepcb-parts-generator
- vonnieda 8y agoThis looks really great! Congrats to the author on reaching this milestone. The library management seems like a great step forward!
- cheunste 8y agoI started learning KiCad a few days ago. Should I jump ship to this or is this something I should keep an eye on?
- Animats 8y agoLearn KiCAD for now. Give this new thing a few years to mature.
- IshKebab 8y agoKicad is not easy to use. I would recommend designspark PCB (free but not open source) for now if you just want to make PCBs. It still has some crazy quirks but it gets most things right (unlike Eagle).
- cheunste 8y agoI don't know. I recall a friend telling me he had somewhat of a bad experience in the past with Designspark. He said something about a lot of inconsistent crashing and if he didn't save it once in a while, he'll lose quite a bit of progress on his board. However, that was over five years ago and was on a Windows machine.
- dbrgn 8y agoThere's also an "Intro to LibrePCB" talk recording from FOSDEM this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu-h5y6tK34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu-h5y6tK34 It explains some of the core design concepts and the rationale for them. In case you don't have time to watch the video, here are the slides: https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/cad_librepcb/attachments/slides/2267/export/events/attachments/cad_librepcb/slides/2267/librepcb_slides.pdf https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/cad_librepcb/...
- sowbug 8y ago"All files of LibrePCB projects and libraries are highly optimized for version control systems" Thank you. I do check Eagle files into version control so that I can annotate project progress, but I can't help but scrutinize the line-by-line diffs before submitting, and it's exasperating because they're so noisy.
- basicplus2 8y agoAutoTrax/DEX is worth a try.. https://active3d.com/Download https://active3d.com/Download Its what i use, but i cannot give a comparison with others as i have not used them in years. The paid version is obviously better than the free version.
- squarefoot 8y ago"libssl_conf.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory" Should anyone encounter this error with the app closing when attempting to open the library manager, it can be solved through a symbolic link in the local application lib path. Assuming LibrePCB is installed in ~/LibrePCB: $ cd ~/LibrePCB/stable/lib $ ln -s libssl.so.1.0.0 libssl_conf.so Done.